Swine Flu Update

At this point we are still planning for V and the kids to travel to the US next week, but this may still be canceled in the next few days as the news develops. We have learned a lot since the last post about swine flu. A lot of the latest news comes from this BBC article. Importantly, it does not seem to be as deadly as it first appeared; it is more equivalent to the regular seasonal flu outside Mexico. The kids are at a perfect age to survive the flu, even in past pandemics like the 1918 Spanish flu the mortality at their age is virtually zero, the bigger risk is for V and I. Also, the EU decided this week not to suspend flights to Mexico, suggesting there will not be travel problems to and from the US in the coming weeks. One of our worst fears was if they became stranded in an airport if the borders closed, perhaps with the flu. We have added travel insurance in the US to our regular EU-wide insurance, so they should have access to medical care in each country (we planned to do this anyway, even before the news about the flu last weekend). There has been person to person transmission here in Germany, and a case of the flu in nearby Hamburg, but WHO is now reporting that it does not appear to be sustained transmission in Europe. We are hopeful that the warmer weather in the next month will cut the transmission rate, but this is speculation on our part (for a new flu virus). I am not happy about them being in an airplane or in airports, but this is always an issue with travel and disease one way or the other. We may also delay their trip back depending on how things develop.